A Delhi court on Tuesday sent Karnataka Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar to judicial custody. He was arrested in a money-laundering case by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar sent Shivakumar to custody and directed the ED to take Shivakumar to the hospital first and to see whether doctor suggests admission.
The probe agency claimed in the court that its interrogation was yet to be completed and sought permission from the judge to interrogate Shivakumar during the judicial custody.
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Transcripts sought
Shivakumar, arrested by the ED on September 3, sought the court’s direction to call for the transcript of his statements recorded by an Assistant Director of the ED under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
He also sought from the court to hold that the probe agency has no jurisdiction to invoke provisions of PMLA against him.
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In his plea before the high court, he claimed that the statement under Section 50 of the PMLA could only be recorded by the Director of the ED and the statement recorded by any other officer in Shivakumar’s case be removed from the records.
He said that in no manner Shivakumar can be linked to money laundering as contemplated under the PMLA and alleged that the ED officers “for extraneous reasons, are trying to impute criminality into the same, so as to harass him“.
The proceedings initiated against Shivakumar are “laced with bias” at the behest of the ED officials, the plea alleged, adding that the investigation was conducted with “political bias“.
The trial court had earlier allowed ED to interrogate the politician in custody, saying the allegations made against him were serious in nature.